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Minneapolis City Council aides go to Cuba to learn about urban agriculture, composting

Erin Golden | Star Tribune, Minneapolis | Jan 28, 2015

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City staffers were looking for lessons about urban agriculture inside and outside Havana.

Two Minneapolis City Council aides were part of a Twin Cities group that recently spent more than a week in Cuba, visiting co-ops and compost sites and picking up information on urban agriculture.

Robin Garwood, a policy aide for Council Member Cam Gordon and Ben Somogyi, policy aide for Council Member Lisa Bender, said the trip offered a chance to get a new perspective on agriculture efforts championed by both council members. The two joined 10 other people, several of them with Stone’s Throw Urban farm, on the “food sovereignty” trip organized by think tank Food First.

Seeing what we could do to have really good controls on allowing composting businesses in the city and also hearing what farmers are actually doing — that, in particular, was fascinating,

The nine-day trip included visits to urban farms in and outside of Cuba’s capital of Havana.

Garwood said the trip was organized months before the U.S. announced it was taking formal steps to open up relations between the two countries. It was selected because the country is known for innovation in how it grows and uses food, particularly in urban areas. For the past few decades, Garwood said, Cubans have been perfecting a system that uses very few pesticides or other chemicals, because they were unable to import them.
He said the Cubans he spoke with are interested in developing more of a self-sustaining, local food system.

“They want to reduce their imports, to the point they’re not importing [much] food,” he said.

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Somogyi said Bender has been working on building up local opportunities for small-scale composting businesses, and the trip provided a close look at composting systems with a long history of success. Stops on the tour included places that use worms for composting.

“Seeing what we could do to have really good controls on allowing composting businesses in the city and also hearing what farmers are actually doing — that, in particular, was fascinating,” he said.

Minneapolis is rolling out a new compost program for residents this year.

Somogyi funded the trip out of his own pocket, while Garwood covered half the expense. Gordon’s office picked up about $2,000 of the tab.
Both council staffers said they’re working on a report on the trip that can be shared with other council members and local leaders. They said their observations will be helpful in shaping city policies, including the use of public land for community and market gardens.

Tracy Sides, founder and executive director of Urban Oasis, a St. Paul sustainable food center, said the trip was a useful opportunity for food-focused leaders to get to know one another and share ideas about work that could be done in the Twin Cities.

She said Cuba has an “enviable” level of connection between neighborhood groups and local and national government on growing and sharing food — and she’d like to see a closer connection at home.

Erin Golden • 612-673-4790

Food Sovereignty Tours organizes private tours for your group of 8 or more! Contact foodsovtours@foodfirst.org for more information.